Mayor: 'We must ensure Ryder Cup 2027 visitors see all of Limerick'

MAYOR John Moran has outlined the importance of ensuring visitors to next year’s Ryder Cup in Adare get the chance to see Limerick as a whole.

He described the hosting of the blue riband tournament as “the best marketing opportunity for Limerick”.

“Everybody is looking in on Limerick. We need to make sure it is not just about a golf course, that it is actually about Limerick. That the people who come don’t fly into Shannon, stay in a hotel in Galway and come to the golf and not know anything about Limerick because they have gone through the tunnel. It’s a challenge we all have to work together on,” the first citizen said in an interview on the Limerick Today show on Live95 radio.

The countdown is well and truly on to the tournament, which is scheduled for September 2027.

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A special ‘12 months to go’ event will take place this September, and the mayor says he is working to take advantage of it.

However, he believes preparations for both the Ryder Cup and Europride - scheduled for the following year in the west of Ireland including Limerick - should go hand-in-hand.

“If you think about the way those work, the Ryder Cup will bring a lot of people to Limerick, and it will have the world’s media on us. The Europride event if we do it well could bring more people to Limerick, but there will be less international focus unless we come up with some really good events. So we need to be planning both Europride and the Ryder Cup at the same time,” the mayor added.

Elsewhere in the radio interview, Mayor Moran has suggested ‘smart’ modular homes could be built on land which may be bought by the HSE - and in some cases, used by staff of the health service.

He revealed he has been in talks with HSE bosses over whether his plans to build temporary homes across the city to ease the housing crisis could help doctors, nurses and other people working at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

The directly elected first citizen still harbours ambitions of building 2,000 rapid-build homes across Limerick, which would be used to give people places to live while longer-term houses are then built, and has identified a number of sites.

He held fresh talks with the Government on the plan last week - despite ministers previously reducing the scale of the project down to just 150 homes.

All this comes against the backdrop of Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill confirming she will be proceeding with plans to expand capacity at UHL, and potentially build another medical facility close to Dooradoyle.

“We have had conversations with the HSE about whether the smart-home project could be used just for their workers and how we might structure it. It would have to be different because they are based on external rental being paid by normal persons. If it works, if they think they have enough demand, and we can convince a financier to come and finance the acquisition of the smart homes, then absolutely,” he said.

Speaking more in general about his flagship project, Mayor Moran also raised the possibility of ‘smart’ homes being built on land which will eventually be designated for medical use.

Ms MacNeill said last month there is “no question” the Mid-West needs a new public hospital, but it’s something she needs to plan with clinicians and cabinet colleagues.

Mayor Moran said: “Let’s say we have the good fortune to have the new hospital and we have a big site for this which will grow over time into the new hospital facilities. The HSE might agree with us that one half of that site, we are not going to use for 20 to 30 years. But we need key housing for our workers in the hospital. So we’d like to build smart homes there, and in 20 years’ time, you can move them somewhere else and we can start building another part of the hospital.”

The executive mayor’s first full year in office has been marked by disagreements with fellow councillors, and, on occasion, members of the local authority’s executive.

He hopes 2026 heralds a new start.

However, he did acknowledge there are members of the council who “would like my job in three-and-a-half years’ time”.

“They are like an opposition in that respect, and that’s good. Because they hold me to task on what I said I would  for the people,” he said.